The net result of Reaganomics

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by iceaura, Jun 24, 2019.

  1. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    8,857
    Who cares if it's not "like" earnings. Planning for the future is not like doing today's work but both are needed.

    It's an investment which involves risk. You can lose money as well as make money. Without that reward no one would take the risk.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Of course. And if you invest your savings in a 401k, the market MIGHT collapse. It MIGHT fail. Many things MIGHT happen. After all the market's success is variable and subject to many forces outside your control.

    Still, if you put a lot of salary into a 401k, and are able to retire with two million, you can take credit for that. Through your efforts, you have money for retirement.
    Of course. Capital gains are different than income, and investments are different than money in your savings account. All those financial decisions are results of your efforts. You may choose wisely, or you may choose poorly.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    What you expect in return for that is interest income. IOW: you are lending the money you earned with your labour in the expectation that the borrowers will return more money than you lent them. Without you having to make any more effort. The same would be true of appreciation on real estate or interest on a bank deposit or winning on a horse-race.
    You can claim whatever credit you like and it still won't change facts. You earned the salary you were paid, saved the surplus (beyond what you needed to live on). If you then retired on those savings, you would have earned the retirement funds with your own efforts. If you invest your savings, and then other people pay you back more than you lent them, you retire on other people's efforts.
    Decisions are not labour. They have no product - only sequelae. Nobody pays you for decisions: they pay for the temporary use of your money. That's not your effort; it's theirs.
    You may be lucky or unlucky. You may be the victim of a crime or the beneficiary of a crime. The circumstances change long beyond and far away from where you make a decision. None of that has any bearing on effort-earning ratio.
     
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  7. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Right. And if you make good decisions you make money in the market. If you do not, you fail. They don't pay you for your decisions - but your own good decisions pay you.
    Again, if you invest in your own company's stock, you are retiring on your efforts - and on the efforts of everyone else in the company. And that's true of everyone else retiring on that stock.
     
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    Fine. Also irrelevant. If you win the lottery, it's because you made a good decision in buying a ticket, and you're entitled to the money. Lottery winnings are income --- but not earned by effort.

    Whatever everyone else in the company does is explicitly not your effort, so you're already getting income beyond your own earning.
    But that's still a separate matter from what happens on the stock market. If you make bad decisions and the company is unprofitable, all your employees' efforts become irrelevant. They earned their paychecks. Beyond that, they owe you nothing.

    You don't retire on stock. You retire (stop making effort) and then spend the income from dividends or stock sales. If the company is dissolved the day after you retire, there are no dividends, however much you had invested. If the company continues, you're entitled to the income, but you're not earning by your efforts.
    It's not a question of deserving, or credit or quality of decisions. It's a question of the meaning.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Agreed there. That's a game of chance. But investing is not. That's why there are good investment advisers and bad ones.
    When someone in a company makes bad decisions is the time that other employee's efforts are the MOST relevant. Good companies are structured so bad decisions are very hard to promulgate. If a company is structured such that the survival of the company is dependent on one person's decisions - best to quit and find a better one.
     
  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    8,857
    What is being described is an employee/worker mentality. Many people are both owners (via equity share) and employees or "workers". Without incentives for start and continuing running companies there would be no companies (except state run).

    If this is the point of these kinds of arguments, great, so be it. Otherwise, it doesn't work. The holy grail isn't money that you've earned though "labor". The economy needs investments of all kinds. Risk is inherent and the rewards need to be proportionate.

    That's not to say that the current tax rates can't go up and in many cases, they should.
     
  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    To the fate of the company, probably. To the phrase: "earned by the boss's own effort", not at all.
     
  12. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    Boom n bust capitalism relys on cannibalizing new life
    They only way to sustain the system is to consume the people being born
    thier labour must go unrewarded so the money flows to the top
    they must die cheaply so the profits can be extracted by the top %

    this is Boom N Bust capitalist ideology

    Liberal Conservatism was invented to be a media machine to normalise that inside a religious concept where social accountability had been normalised in to financial relationships... those financial relationships have been usurped into qwasi liberal ideological religion that pays no tax and offers ideological incursion into private lifes of people as a mandate to be self accountable
    like a slave master making up their own rules about how to be efficient


    however... the threads are coming undone as the upper middle class are becoming the food for the top%
    Climate change will put an end to it.

    reagan was the 1st us president to install social monitoring to help try and fight the media idea that capitalism did not care for its working class people.

    what has changed is a good question
     
  13. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

    lol
    it puts the lotion on its dining room table to feed its kids

    dont mind not eating, your just being partially or fully shut down
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    The grand theme: these guys cannot - physically cannot - paraphrase my posts.
    Which is an interesting fact. It shows what the bubble can do.

    Mind: this guy typed all this crap after - not before - he had spent a half dozen posts in several different threads guessing (and then insisting on!) my personal circumstances, education, country of non-residence, etc, and getting every single one wrong.
    Nothing like that appears in any post of mine.
    Except for "stupid", and blaming the talking point parrot routine on your Tribe.
    Your posts are often stupid, including the entire schtick of trying to guess my personal attributes and circumstances (what in hell for?) - but I explicitly blame the bubble. You'd be silly and wrong far less if you gave up parroting the Republican media feed.
    Reading comprehension problems again. Confusion of "doesn't like" with observation. Confusion of Party line with personal observation, ignorance of the meaning of "talking points", trouble with meanings of terms generally (apparently consequential, imposed by "both sides" bubble filter - which leads to channeling Pee Wee Herman).
    Absolutely denied, explicitly, many times. No hope. One-upmanship is the basic fascist reality, discussion of topics an unfamiliar situation.
    It would be better if you could learn, of course - but from common reality.
    Nope. Not "combat" - that implies argument, effort. The lesson of 2004: don't waste time persuading a wingnut of anything. They parrot - label it "parroting". They lie, label their posts "lying". Repetition is key. They are not the readers who matter.
    Never use the term - that's a wingnut term, in practice simultaneously stupid and meaningless (it means "naming", in wingnut practice - they aren't used to it like the rest of us, and of course accuracy in naming their stuff carries - how to say it - negative connotations. Can't be helped - memory and accuracy is the main advantage we have ).
    The classic wingnut assumption of normality - the Tribe doesn't realize it's a faction, to which most people don't belong.

    They live in a bubble, kind of an analog of Plato's cave, only no mouth. They have to save themselves - they cannot be reached.
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    The best studies of investors in the stock and bond markets show no difference between good investment advisors and the advice from a random number generator properly set up.

    Which doesn't mean there is no difference between good and bad investment advisors - just reveals the nature of the expertise involved: a bad advisor, like a bad gambler, has a system for beating the house. A good one stays out of the way, distributes to take advantage of chance. And that is (surprisingly?) difficult. It does in fact require ability, experience, and strength of mind.

    But one can't sell Ouija board investment strategies as expertise. So the advisor needs a pitch - but should never believe in it to the point of altering the basic approach (More than one person has speculated on that necessity - the need for a pitch, by a wise and creative tribal elder, to sell their wisdom of chance, becoming a procedure for teaching or guiding the advice of the less able but nevertheless tasked, which becomes ritual and acquires narrative and eventually myth.)
     
  16. Seattle Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,857
    The obsessive of La Mancha strikes again! La Mancha, dreaming the impossible dream, brought to you by Gump Chocolates...you never know what you are going to get. Stay tuned for the next installment...
     
  17. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,447
    The Bullys(Republican) Ego must win
    it must then define that all pain and suffering is the fault of the victim(The non Republican)

    Bully normalisation culture.
    The Republican insular arrogance serves the bullys Ego best
    it puts the lotion on its stereotypical profile(or it gets called a hippy-tree-hugger again)
     
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Not quite. The studies you reference show _little_ (not zero) difference in fund performance when comparing funds created by fund managers and funds chosen at random.

    But those are fund managers, not investment advisers. A good investment adviser will recommend categories of risk based on the person's tolerance for risk. A 25 year old single guy with a good job? A good adviser will likely counsel them to put everything they can into a 401k into high-risk investments. A 50 year old father of three? He will likely recommend moving to less risky instruments.

    Right. There is a big difference between good investment advisers and bad ones.
     
  19. Seattle Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,857
    Investment advisers are beside the point anyway. The discussion was about earned income vs capital gains. The implication was that only earned income was worthy or worthwhile, which of course is nonsense.
     
  20. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    Socialist Free Market Capitalism relys on trading agreements between members of the community to give their time & money to others in the community.

    the average double professional new baby family uses & interacts in massive networks of labour sharing, charity & barter systems trading labour hours goods & services.

    interesting to ponder the early 80s solo parent concept and compare the 2.

    Selfish Self Centered entitlement cultured in ignorance is a terrible disease

    however, it is interesting watching this disease be self manifested into normalcy as middle class are knowingly bleed dry.
    The Labour saving devices that would have otherwise made the middle class rich enough to invest into new jobs and lowering prices of the rental market is sucked out through layers of complicit insular cannibalism dressed up in a monkey suit & called individualism & free choice.

    no irony in 401k being de-funded and bleed dry so now worth only around 50% of what they use to be while having massive fees put on top that cant be claimed back for lack of 'doing the job' while the risk to loss is increased a thousand percent and sold as "thats just the way the game is played".

    you appear to be discussing something with a miss-information producer

    i have met and personally chatted with a few fully qualified investment advisers with decades of market experience.
    on the whole they tend to be very nice people.
    i think they have to be, to be able to keep up with all the government regulation market changes and constant learning.

    stock & bond sales people or "traders" are a completely different animal.
    however the average person doesnt know the difference.

    then you have faceless sales manager bureaucrats running retirement funds as faceless un accountable risk shufflers who get paid a salary with massive bonuses leveraged against portfolios which can make a loss and they can still get their bonus.
    Computers can do this job and save hundreds of millions in fees & lofty bonuses and company cars etc...
    it would be a lot safer than driver-less cars

    if you only add more confusion to that ignorance then you become part of the problem.

    it sounds like your arguing some basic economic principals of market design and then leveraging economic morality on to it as a premise of cause and effect.

    it reads like your attempting to spread miss information
    though i know your smart enough to know that would seem obvious to some readers.

    what am i missing ?

    note:

    The spoilt little rich boy fascist scam artist who wants to get all of daddys friends millions and be lord of the shit heap...
    Narcissist

    "Hedge fund manager"

    completely different animal to an investment adviser.


    They set out to scam their way through the qualifications required to be able to set up a limited liability company or a charity that pays no tax, then use that to get daddys friends to give them spare money to get a small modest return on.
    they then scam middle class people out of their life savings as they build quasi pyramid systems gifting themselves millions in salary's and expense accounts.
    these spoilt little rich boy fascists create a cannibalistic sociopath environment where laws dont apply.

    such systems are normalised and people set themselves up as apologists to it while they attempt to cut out a part of the money for themselves.

    morally they are completely different to an investment adviser or just an average working class person.
    unfortunately people covet the money and so say their morality is excusable because they are rich.
    that is very american(alt-right) capitalist
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2019
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    But:
    And:
    So investing is a game of chance, as noted. Some play it better than others.
    - - - -
    It becomes a concern when the capital gains - and the capital they are based on - are inherited.

    If that is allowed, without suitable restriction or taxation, the return to capital will grow to dominate the economy - the return to labor, effort, ingenuity, etc, will shrink proportionately. The "financial" segment of the economy will collect the surplus wealth of production. In addition, the ownership of capital will concentrate - ending in a moribund aristocracy of wealth, and a misallocation of resources into unproductive piles largely unavailable to the general population.
     
  22. Seattle Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,857
    Investing isn't "a game of chance". It does inherently involve risk. That's why the reward has to be higher than earning simple interest since the capital is at risk.

    If you take $10k and stash it in a saving account, you will earn virtually nothing but your capital isn't at risk.

    If you take that money to start a small restaurant, that capital is at risk. You may lose it all. If your return (including tax treatment) is no better than a savings account you aren't going to do it.

    It's no different with the stock market. There has to be a liquid market for those investing in larger companies. There wouldn't be nearly as many larger companies if they couldn't raise capital via issuing stock and no one would invest in that stock if there wasn't a liquid secondary market.

    You may not "like" corporations and feel that the economy would be just as large and better off if there were only small companies but history doesn't bear that out.

    Leaving assets to your children is also not a bad thing as long as most everyone (many) is able to do that if they wish. The concentration at the very top is a concern and that can be addressed without enacting blanket policies that effect everyone on down the line.

    If you are able to leave whatever you have accumulated by the end of your life to your kids, you are just providing them some financial security. They are likely to do better and make better decisions if they have a little financial security.

    That doesn't make those assets unavailable to the general public. They are the general public. If they have some stock ownership or a house to rent out or just a house to live in, that isn't a bad thing.

    To argue otherwise is just to make everyone dependent on the government and to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator. As they say, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

    To do otherwise is just to turn everyone into sheep waiting to be taken care of, with no incentive to do anything else.
     
  23. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    It is based on risk; that doesn't make it a game of chance, like Roulette. If you have the money to invest, your odds of doing better than inflation are close to unity. That is, if you do it wisely.

    That's true of a lot of things BTW. Sports - invention - business management - tax preparation - any endeavor has a degree of chance, and you can optimize your exposure to that risk a dozen ways.
    I am all for suitable taxation. But it's silly to think that capital will "take over" from labor - because at the end of the day, everything in our economy is based on labor.
     

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